My Body Lies Over the Sea
by et2brute
Summary: Eighteen instances, not necessarily in order, but all facets of a whole.  Originally I meant to tell a story, but this has been rotting on my hard drive for too long, so I'm calling it finished.
1. one

"We know beauty because there is ugly.

We know good because there is evil.

Being and not being,

having and not having,

create each other."(1)

Sometimes his mother would read him stories before he went to sleep. Most of the time it was an over-glorified history of some clansman or another, how the first Uchiha broke away from the Hyuuga branch house to form a new clan, marry into another family with blood abilities that eventually transformed the _byakkugan_ to _sharingan_; sometimes she would tell stories about the great heroes of fire country, even the ones that didn't carry the Uchiha name. Sometimes she read to him from the book she kept under her pillow, the old, old phrases she would always be quoting. His father would quote them on occasion, but he never knew them all; he would purse his lips, look to her, and she would smile serenely and say, _If you know when you have enough, you are wealthy. If you carry your intentions to completion, you are resolute_.(2) He would thank her and continue his letter, or the lecturing of his eldest son.

The stories wouldn't last very long, the nights she read from the text; she would generally illustrate the philosophy with an example, smile in her tranquil way, and kiss his forehead before tucking him in for the night.

Sometimes, if his parents were visiting friends or family, or during the missions of their own, his brother was left to take care of him. This happened once or twice a month, especially during one April when a close friend of their mother's was having a difficult pregnancy and kept her away two or three nights a week.

Silently, without ever voicing the decision, without Sasuke ever needing to ask, Itachi took up the ritual.

Itachi had missions as well, and sometimes he wouldn't get back until one, two, three in the morning; sometimes without having slept for several days. But he'd slide open the door to his younger brother's room, step inside quiet as a cat, and sit on the bed. Sasuke would wake up because he hadn't really been asleep, waiting.

Rarely, Itachi still had that metallic smell on him, staining his clothes even if he'd washed his hands.

But he'd pull out his own book, bound black with red characters and threading, but the same text as their mother's; and he would read the verses and explain them to Sasuke. His voice was always steady, his eyes always alert, even when he should have been exhausted. His hands never shook as they turned the thin, rice-paper pages of the slender volume.

Occasionally, the verses he chose were ones Sasuke had heard before, and the younger brother would light up with pride at his ability to explain the ideas behind the words.

As Itachi finished the reading with, "But when nothing is done sincerely, nothing and no one embraces us,"(3) Sasuke said eagerly,

"This one means that insincerity isolates you, so you should always be sincere and honest, otherwise you will be misunderstood."

Itachi waved Sasuke closer, smiling his strange, subdued smile; Sasuke leaned in.

Itachi flicked him.

With a soft yelp and a grimace, Sasuke turned up his nose. "But that's what Mom said."

"Is that all she said?"

"Well, she just told me I should live my life sincerely."

"Ah."

He was able to hold out for about seven seconds before he couldn't stand the wait any longer. "Brother, is she wrong?"

Itachi was silent for a moment, and then he said quietly, "She is sincere."

Sasuke fidgeted, wordless; he firmly believed that he understood his brother, and this silence, those precise words, meant that his mother believed what she said, but was mistaken nonetheless. "What do you think?"

"Isolation is not necessarily a negative state. For a ninja, it may even be a crucial part of survival. Insincerity is the basis for subtlety and finesse. To be successful, you must be able to lead your enemies astray and to properly maneuver your allies."

Sasuke was silent, listening, allowing his brother's words to both fill him and swallow him whole.

"If someone understands you, they understand your motives. They can predict you."

His eyes fell to the sheet where his hands clenched at the white coverlet, then rose again to meet the dark eyes that were so like his own, and yet so dramatically different; so black as to appear, in the vaguest corners of highlights, a deep, bloody, almost-red.

"That is inherently dangerous. Sasuke, you must _always_ hold your intentions close to you until the proper moment. Everything up to that point is for arranging yourself around others: 'Thus do we create what _is_ to use what _is not_,'"(4) and he stressed the words carefully. "Relationships between people are a framework to build up and dissolve as it suits your goals. Insincerity is your greatest tool for that because if you are believed sincere, you will remain unquestioned. It allows you to control people, and that is essential. If you are embraced, as they put it, or accepted; if you are _known_; that devalues you as a ninja."

He rose and closed the book, set it on the side table. He ruffled his younger brother's hair and smiled, the lines on his face pulled slightly with the movement. It made him look tired.

Really, it made him look like a snake that appears to be sleeping just before it strikes.


	2. two

"Listen carefully: 'It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil, it's what comes out of their mouths that is.(5)'" Iruka-_sensei_ was reading. It was a book about a shepherd from a far-away country trying to find treasure. He had given the children a brief summary of the novel and had pulled at select passages for his lecture that day. "Students, the most important aspect of being a ninja is to be as efficient as possible when it comes to missions, to be unbiased in reports, to portray information accurately. But it is just as important to be honest with those who become close to you, to know each other intimately and form bonds of trust; one day the mission could rely on it, or your own lives. Lying is part of being a ninja, of course--whenever you're on an undercover assignment, it is paramount to keep up appearances; but you should never lie to your teammates, or keep things from them. Everything between you must be shared to ensure a greater lucidity in your combined efforts. And," here he paused, breaking off from his speech and slowly moving his eyes across his students who, for once, listened aptly, "if you lie to your teammates, your comrades, who are supposed to be the closest people to you--it is almost as good as lying to yourself. And self-deception is the surest road to self-destruction. Dismissed." 

He had spoken right up to the bell, and kids were hurriedly gathering their schoolbooks together and rushing out the door. Sasuke was never in a hurry, and most of the students had filtered out before he'd stood up. The girls had hung back long enough to giggle and blush, but they left eventually, losing their collective nerve; he never gave them a single sign of acknowledgment.

There was a yellow-haired boy talking to the teacher in a loud, oblivious voice. He was complaining, then making lewd comments, then boasting about something thoroughly insignificant. Sasuke's eyebrow twitched as Uzumaki Naruto turned, elbows up and hands behind his head, to squint up at him. Sasuke wrinkled his nose slightly and Naruto made a face before turning back to Iruka-_sensei_.

"What happened to that one story, with the two brothers?"

"Naruto, that was three weeks ago and you missed the end of it because you were sleeping in class."

"Oh." A pause, a puzzled expression and then, "So how'd it end? Cas… Cast--"

"Castor. Castor and Pollux(6)."

Sasuke slowed down a fraction; he remembered the story well and focused on perfectly organizing his knapsack, lining the pencils up by height and sharpness, how much eraser was left. In the fable the men had shared a mother, but a god had fathered one, so dismissing his mortality. After a fierce battle where Castor lay dying, Pollux had called out to Zeus and traded in his secured position on Mount Olympus; Zeus breathed life into Castor, and in return the two brothers spent the rest of their days together, died as mortals, and took their place in the heavens. There were two stars marking them that Sasuke had never bothered to memorize the location of, but this was immaterial.

"That was a lot to give up, huh."

Iruka-_sensei_ was shuffling through some papers and Sasuke was walking out the door. Before it clicked shut, he heard the last phrase flooding out into the hallway as his voice was wont to do, filling up all available area.

"Does everyone have a friend like that?"

It was probably the plaintive, almost needy hollows to his voice that twisted the dark, dark place in Sasuke's heart.

"I bet they were never lonely, huh."

Sasuke didn't have to look through the glass pane in the door to see the empathetically wounded look Iruka wore that Naruto, of course, never caught.


	3. three

"Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead;

and then lead will have to turn itself into gold."(7)

Naruto had never cared for anyone because no one had ever cared for him. He was a trouble-maker, a frustrating student, and an overall nuisance to the general public; it never bothered him.

The way he saw it, he was perfectly entitled to his graffiti, his insolence, his careless attitude; after all, perfection was left to geniuses like Uchiha Sasuke. He really did admire the boy, to the point of self-imposed competition--but in the beginning, the days before Team Seven and Kakashi-_sensei _and Sakura-_chan_, his loneliness had never bulked up his willpower like it had later on. On his own, he was never good enough to rival Sasuke.

Iruka-_sensei_ would deny it because he was that sort of person--kind, humble. He loved Naruto like a son, lacking any of his own children; he had never held him responsible for the sins of the _kyuubi_. It was his kindness that first lured Naruto's own heart, curtained behind years of isolation and loathing, hard stone shields of disobedience and foolishness. That was the spark.

Kakashi-_sensei_ might have, on a rare occasion, spoken of the change in Naruto. These instances were few and far between, and only to Gai-sensei or perhaps the Sandaime. It wasn't so much the team atmosphere, though that in itself meant the world to Naruto; a group of people, like a family, who fought to protect one another.

It was being paired with Sakura-_chan_, to fight for; it was being paired with Sasuke to fight against.

But really, he fought for both of them. Kakashi-_sensei_ would remark that the links they formed were as intricate as they were interesting; without Sakura-_chan_, Naruto and Sasuke would never have worked together as they did. There was too much there between them to leave the two alone with it; she was a necessary distraction. And without Sasuke, Sakura-_chan_ and Naruto alone would have surely fallen, because Sasuke was brilliant and resourceful. Behind Naruto's boisterous bragging and Sakura-_chan_'s constant challenge and faithless support, Sasuke was the real mettle that kept them alive.

But without Naruto, they would have died long ago. Sakura would pine after Sasuke and never improve; Sasuke would continue to care only for himself. Without trust, without bonds or connections, there is no team and success is minimal.

Naruto had a way of tearing little holes in people, and crawling in, and curling up to sleep in their hearts. One day Sasuke would wake up and he would realize that, without even meaning to, without even thinking about it or considering the consequences, he had blocked a barrage of needles aimed to kill; a subconscious sacrifice of his own life, which was so important because he had someone to kill.

Sakura would feel him stirring inside her, one day, when he left with an untried group of _Gennin_ to bring back the boy she thought she loved, smiled at her with Gai-_sensei_'s patented Nice Guy thumbs-up promise. Naruto did things like that, without even meaning to, and they all would start to love him in some small way.

But in the end, it was the constant rivalry, the animosity that was only partially smoothed by Sakura-_chan_'s presence, that drove him to excel. And he slowly gained on Sasuke.

What Sasuke hated most, at the very end, was how far he'd fallen behind. Even with the curse seal, only against the bare minimum of _kyuubi_'s power, it was hardly more than a tie. And he still lost, because deep down--well, honestly, Sasuke loves Naruto infinitesimally more than he hates his brother.

But that was enough, because he collapsed, fell forward, fell _into_ Naruto, and there was blood and rain and unheeded burning sensations around his eyes where tears should have surfaced and fell, but didn't--he refused to believe it wasn't rain.

And he stood and he left, because Naruto had become something greater than Sasuke, and all it reminded him of was his brother, and his hatred, and the one truth he had lived his entire life by up until that point:

_You are weak, little brother._


	4. four

There was a darkness and a lightness to them, and they complemented and contrasted with each other in ways that both bound them and broke them apart in a continuous cycle. 

Gaara understood; Gaara fought Sasuke once. And he saw, even then, what Naruto could not see because Naruto was blinded, always, by Sasuke and looked only at him; he saw because he could examine every angle of the Uchicha, detached, and he knew that Sasuke needed Naruto as much as Naruto needed Sasuke.

"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."(8) Lee had said this to Gaara once, and he had been sincere; so Gaara believed it. And this was what he thought when he looked at Naruto, and how much Naruto needed people to come running to save _him_ for a change. Nobody saved everyone all of the time.

Zabuza died because he was fundamentally nothing without Haku. It was the kind of love that lie unspoken, sometimes unknown or admitted. But Haku knew, and so he stayed, and so he died.

Those were the things Naruto had the most trouble with. He didn't want to have to die for Sasuke to acknowledge him.

But he would, if that was what it took. It was his way of the ninja.

_I won't give up, even if I die_.

He held the sentiment closer in his heart even than Sakura-_chan_.


	5. five

Sasuke has no interest in his future. He wants only the power to kill Itachi, and then to do so. After that, his life has no meaning--so when Orochimaru uses his body as a vessel, he won't struggle as long as Itachi is dead. He doesn't figure Naruto into the scenario because Naruto is a finished thing with him; he does not think he will ever see his comrade again. 

He does not even call him a comrade, now, because Sasuke himself is a missing-_nin_ and even if he did go back to Konoha, he would not be welcome.

He never thinks about the slick, hot blood that coated his hand when he punctured Naruto's lung with his fist; does not think about the fight, or the bright pale light engulfing the two of them, or the image of them as children and the sheepish, secret smiles they'd shared; the linked fingers, the dialogue between their hearts that held them in perfect sync for those few, white seconds.

He calls it refusing to be his brother's pawn; finding his own way, his own path.

He'd made up his mind to kill his closest friend before he ever met Naruto.

He would never admit that he didn't have it in him to do so to the person he loved best in the world.


	6. six

If you spend your entire life idolizing someone and then they systematically destroy everything that ever mattered to you--call it hate, call it loathing, call it whatever you want to make yourself feel better, but you're going to fear them with every fiber of your being. 

He calls the feeling vengeance and he's most likely going to die for it; the sick black tendrils of focused self-loathing that he mistakenly labels Itachi. It coils in his stomach until he has to throw up, away from the other students and, later, away from his teammates and Kakashi-_sensei_. He's too young to realize that he hated Itachi even while he idolized him; hates him now for the obvious reasons, but subconsciously he's still the younger brother who, despite every effort, could never surpass the older.

Sasuke keeps all the doors to his heart locked up tight, and all the windows shuttered frostily against intruders; no, he says, in his eyes and in his body language, nobody belongs in here except for me and this monster I'm feeding. There is no room for anything else.

All the time Sasuke knew Naruto, after they became Genin, after the missions started, all Naruto ever did was sit outside of Sasuke's heart and bang loudly and obnoxiously at the door.

It wasn't until the end--not the very end, but the partial ending, when Sasuke was leaving--that he finally opened up.

He couldn't run the risk of Naruto being unable to handle his monster, after all; to see how much Sasuke hated himself and called it hating Itachi.

They almost found a common ground to stand on, but no--Naruto saves people, but nobody can save someone from themselves unless they open their doors and let them in.

Sasuke only stepped out, once, in the open for Naruto to see; but he didn't let Naruto inside.

What hurt most about his leaving, when Naruto woke up in the hospital days later, was how little he understood about his closest friend; after all, Naruto's doors and windows, Naruto's whole heart--they are always, always open.

Naruto is not afraid of anything, but that ends up hurting him--because he never worries about anything, and he always believes he will be able to do what he needs to do; he promised Sakura-_chan_, after all, and he swore to Sasuke, and after all of that wriggling around against Sasuke's heart and feeling for purchase, after all the words they finally told each other--Sasuke didn't come back.

He wonders if maybe he should be afraid, just a little; if maybe he should worry about Sasuke--if the Sasuke he meets next time will be unrecognizable; if the Sasuke he cares so much for will still exist.

The fear makes him sick to his stomach.


	7. seven

She calls it love, but really she's just a little girl who saw someone with something burned and broken that he carried around in his soul, and she wanted to heal him; girls are naturally empathetic and sympathetic both, and when someone is in pain--especially if they are beautiful--a girl is helpless. It was really only admiration, and when you are young you can't tell the difference between admiration and love or, like Sasuke, admiration and hate. 

It is all relative.

It is almost three years after Sasuke leaves that Sakura makes the same mistake again: what she feels for Naruto now, and they are all older and much improved and amazing in their own rights--what she feels for Naruto, she calls admiration; but admiration never burned anybody like hate or like love.

Sakura is burning, but she isn't afraid anymore.


	8. eight

"So they circled one another like a double star, and under the shrunken sky there was nothing real but the two of them."(10)

It takes a long time, the tracking and the research and fishing information out of contacts. Naruto has never had qualms about beating people up, but before he'd never done so maliciously; now he justifies it with anger. Sakura is startled, because the sound-_nin_ refuses to acknowledge that he's ever heard of Sasuke. Naruto hits him again, harder, and there are broken teeth on the floor.

He can justify this because, to his reasoning, if someone pisses him off he has every right to retaliate.

Even after the sound-_nin_ loses consciousness, he still believes the man had been holding out on them. He stands off to the side while Sakura patches him back up.

This form of torture--beating the victim and healing them, only to beat them nearly to death again--it is something Tsunade has taught her.

She's never mentioned it to Naruto, and it scares her somewhere that he would come up with it on his own--he isn't that way. He doesn't revel in cruelty, or even enjoy it. There's something dark around his eyes now, something distinctly feral. Fox-like ferocity, and her heart jolts, and she exhales to cover it.

"Don't see why you're bothering with it. I'm just gonna hit him again."

She looked up, genuinely surprised--and relieved. These didn't show on her face, however; only idle query.

"He pisses me off," and then, "Don't waste the chakra on him. Let's move on to the next prisoner."

She berates herself mentally for doubting his moral character, even for an instant; but he has been far-off lately, a distance in his eyes, and it worries her. Naruto never looks at Sakura anymore--he never looks at anyone. It's as if he's staring at Sasuke, even though Sasuke is gone. Staring down his friend and rival, searching those dark eyes for clues, for hints, motives, anything that could just show them where he is.

Put together, all they ever did was fight; but it bound them, to each other and everyone else.

Separate, it only served to isolate them. As if every star in the sky had gone out except for the two belonging to Naruto and Sasuke, and they looked at each other across the heavens, never once looking down at the planets that watched them sorrowfully; never once taking notice.

Sakura is with Naruto almost every day, but he is never with her.


	9. nine

He tries it again and the snakes are bigger this time; arm-sized, roughly, and there's twelve or so that come rushing out of his sleeve with the _jutsu_. 

Orochimaru is pleased, and it shows. He long ago abandoned the art of controlled reactions and expressions--he finds that it is much simpler to get what he wants if he directly expresses his desires. After all, he was far too powerful for anyone to use the leverage of desire against him.

"Good, Sasuke-_kun_. We'll have lunch when you can call fifteen."

It'd taken him the better part of four hours to get from three to seven to eight to twelve. He'd gotten eight in the last hour and a half, and twelve in the last forty-five minutes; he is a fast learner, a real genius, just like Orochimaru had been.

Five minutes later, he has fifteen snakes and Orochimaru claps his hands together once with a wide smile. Kabuto comes in and sets up two elaborate _bento_, and briefly updates the _sannin_ on the current takeover plans for Konoha. This is casual, but it's also a test; Kabuto is less trusting than Orochimaru, who prides himself for knowing exactly what anyone he deals with wants. Sasuke is no spy; he hungers for power, and does not care about the fate of his home village.

Even the name is just a word, like plate or book or tree, and he feels nothing.

It only serves to remind him of Naruto, and this makes his eyes turn in and he is quiet all-around. It is not his usual silence that he wears around him like a cloak but speaks of tragedy and hatred and wholly-focused vengeance; no, this is clearer silence that seems much quieter than how he is the rest of the time. It causes Kabuto to give him a quick once-over, and Orochimaru looks up from the report and studies the face of his next vessel, studies the eyes that will be his; but no, these are not those eyes--these are his normal eyes, without the Sharingan, and they hold a kind of desolation that will not carry over once Sasuke is gone and Orochimaru has fully inhabited the body.

"Sasuke-_kun_," he says softly, one long-fingered hand on the table and splaying. "Miso or curry?"

There is a pause just short enough for them to see that the response is offhand, spoken before considered:

"Do you have any ramen?"


	10. ten

Once, back when Jiraiya was in love with Tsunade and Tsunade preferred Orochimaru's company above even Sandaime's, a bad strain of the flu had been circulating; normally there is still training when a teammate is absent, for illness or otherwise, but the Third had caught the bug as well. 

So it happened that on a Saturday usually reserved for working with the team, Jiraiya and Orochimaru faced off, alone, in the forest clearing that was about a mile and a half away from the approved _jutsu_-practice fields.

They'd nearly decimated that section of forest, and the white-maned _genin_ was exhausted and in such a state of physical battery that one would look at him and look twice, in wonder that he still stood. He was not near to admitting defeat just yet, however.

Orochimaru wiped his mouth and spat a small stream of blood to the side. He was sweating and scowling because as cautious a fighter as he was, as powerful, he was still snakelike and calculating and rarely took the risks that Jiraiya did for the precisely the evident reason--he did not write off the potential damage, did not see the benefit in allowing oneself to be open to so many attacks for the sheer possibility of landing a hit.

But the pervert had landed the last one, and he hit _hard_. Not as hard as Tsunade, of course--no one hit like she did--but Orochimaru would be feeling that in his jaw for a good week or two.

He glanced around fleetingly, then locked eyes with his rival and said, "Of course," and it was like a personal revelation--but the sarcasm was building in the pseudo-incredulous tones. "You'd have to pick up on how to throw a proper punch eventually, what with all the time you spend on the receiving end--and such a strong tutor you've had!"

Jiraiya appeared nonplussed; he is surprisingly level-headed in battle, and he waited for the soft, rough laugh to die away before replying, grandly, "That's as good as admitting you can be hit by a girl, Orochimaru."

There was moment of silence as they sized each other up. Jiraiya was the first to slump over, breathing hard, and Orochimaru walked lightly over and wordlessly hauled him up. They started back, and the last comment was still hanging in the air, but Orochimaru was turning it over and over in his head, and Jiraiya waited patiently for the response.

They were almost to the village when he said,

"If she ever heard you say that," and then he looked at him with an expression that had never been more serious, "You're sure she's at home?"

"Yeah," Jiraiya said quietly. "I looked around during the fight to make sure she wasn't, y'know, spying or anything."

"Good," he said grudgingly. "I did, too."

Privately, Jiraiya was elated that he'd asked--against serious threats, his pale and dark teammate seemed to trust his judgment, even seek it as a second source against his own, despite the usual dispassionate attitude he usually directed at him.

And Tsunade, quick to anger and quick to hit exceedingly hard, was a serious threat indeed.


	11. eleven

Sasuke still has nightmares, and sometimes there are only two things in the black and red inverse world, and they are standing on the bottoms of each other's feet, looking down and up into each other, and for a minute it's like he sees his reflection again, from all those years back--and again, it's like having Itachi staring down at him because he can only ever measure himself by his brother; he can only ever look into himself and see that terrible mirror that could show his older self, can only ever be looked down on by something that he places too far above his hands to ever truly reach. 

In some ways, this is his whole world; in some ways, it is his waking hours that are the dream, because he can only exist in the past, in the bloody room with his parents slumped on the floor and dying over and over--_murdered _over and over. There is a place in him where he stopped, where time froze, where everything is still and silent and black and bleeding and this part fills him and holds the pieces together both; the cancer that keeps him alive, and one day he will wake up with nothing inside of him but this blackness.

Even the light of Naruto, that small pinprick that was able to tie them together so strongly, will go out; and then, there will be nothing but Itachi and the death of Itachi--or the death of Sasuke.

The imbalance is that, while Itachi will live on regardless of whether he kills his brother or not--Sasuke will only live up to the point of death; one of them will die, and either way it will be the end of Sasuke. He bases all of his being on that one goal; and as impossible as it is, it will kill him along with Itachi if he succeeds.


	12. twelve

"Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes."(11)

Even to this day, Kakashi can never find the right words when he stands there next to the quiet monument, but he does talk--airily and uselessly, and it is always a constant flow of unnecessary updates and comments and mundane observations, to make up for all the times he never said anything while Obito was still alive.

He only means to prove that he has changed; that the Uchiha's death wasn't in vain.

Today, he says, "The Fourth's boy, Naruto--big fox demon in 'em, hard to miss--left to find Sasuke today. Sasuke would be your nephew or second cousin or something. He's a good kid, Naruto is. Hotheaded, loud, usually obnoxious, generally lacking in basic skills." He adjusts his mask. "He's probably the best _genin_ I've ever had." Tugs at the forehead protector. "Heart of gold. You would've liked him."

In some strange part of his mind, the memory of Obito seems to split into his memories of Sasuke and Naruto; how Obito, though a generation older, was almost a cross between the two--or, Sasuke and Naruto were somehow a split, and it was almost like Kakashi's past sneaking up on him from both sides to jolt his heart into aching all over again with the hard desire to do it all over, and do it right.

Sometimes he has to remind himself that Obito is dead, but there are always the treasonous thought that flicker through his mind and whisper with Obito's 12-year-old voice, "I can become your eye, and from now on I can see the future." It's all he can do to push back the belief--the desire, the want, the _need_ to know that Obito isn't really gone.

Even if he is.

Especially if he isn't.


	13. thirteen

Sasuke has no interest in his future. He wants only the power to kill Itachi, and then to do so. After that, his life has no meaning--so when Orochimaru uses his body as a vessel, he won't struggle as long as Itachi is dead. He doesn't figure Naruto into the scenario because Naruto is a finished thing with him; he does not think he will ever see his comrade again. 

He does not even call him a comrade, now, because Sasuke himself is a missing-_nin_ and even if he did go back to Konoha, he would not be welcome.

He never thinks about the slick, hot blood that coated his hand when he punctured Naruto's lung with his fist; does not think about the fight, or the bright pale light engulfing the two of them, or the image of them as children and the sheepish, secret smiles they'd shared; the linked fingers, the dialogue between their hearts that held them in perfect sync for those few, white seconds.

He calls it refusing to be his brother's pawn; finding his own way, his own path.

He'd made up his mind to kill his closest friend before he ever met Naruto.

He would never admit that he didn't have it in him to do so to the person he loved best in the world.


	14. fourteen

Gaara says it idly one day, on a diplomatic visit to Konoha, while the advisors are quarreling with each other over the specifics, and Tsunade has called a recess to go have a drink. 

He is as patient as a statue, and as idle, and as silent, until he speaks. Naruto is tapping his fingers along the hard oak, and Sakura looks at the ground, nervous around the demon child that had caused so much damage--and so much healing, as well. She eventually leaves, and this is when Gaara turns fully to Naruto, puts out his hand and flattens the pointlessly fluttering digits against the tabletop.

"The last time we met," he says in his toneless way, "you were shining. You had the sun in you. A cloudless sky, and that is how I could look up at you and be saved." _Blonde hair like a halo._

There is no emotion, because Gaara hasn't become comfortable with feelings yet. He thinks he understands it fleetingly, the way Naruto watches him with the pain filling his eyes like hot oceans.

"There are clouds now. There are storms." _Your sun is covered up_. "Tell me, Naruto," and he moves closer, removes his hand because Naruto's has stilled, searches his face like a dying man sifts all through the desert for water. "Where are you hurting?"

His face collapses in on itself scars and all, and it is several minutes of silent, burning tears and voiceless sobs before Gaara continues, "I will save you if I can."

He is touched, he really, truly is, but his heart hurts too much to say anything. He thinks Gaara understands, though; they've always understood each other, from the very beginning.

He wipes his face on his sleeve and is looking up with raw eyes when Tsunade comes back, flushed, glancing around warily and asking if the bastards have come to a decision yet.

If she notices Naruto's distress, she says nothing. This could be tact, or she could be drunk.

Sakura notices, stepping into the room from behind her _sensei_, and she says nothing. Her eyes only fall wetly.

Gaara says that there isn't any hurry; he can stay a few days. Tsunade looks surprised, and she does look at Naruto--something catches in her expression, and she looks distantly sad, now, instead of pissed.

Then she's pissed again because she has better things to do than to wait for a bunch of old farts to make up their minds on insignificant details. No one mentions that she's just as old, as they quite enjoy their natural bodily processes.


	15. fifteen

Tsunade's regrets weigh on her ruthlessly. They are few, but they are heavy and she will wake up on occasion unable to breathe with the pressure of it against her chest. There are smaller, pettier ones, but she doesn't pay much attention to those anymore--time has healed over them, slowly. But her young brother's blood on her hands--it is still wet, sticking to every movement and action. 

The blood of her lover is still fresh and flowing, profusely bleeding out of her own heart.

But these regrets give her the strength to deny Jiraiya, at the very least, with every ounce of her tremendous strength--she knows, deep down, that she would not survive another loss.

Jiraiya has never wished that things had turned out differently; he does not wish that he and Orochimaru hadn't been friends, and he doesn't wish that he had killed the bastard back when he'd had the chance. He finds the act of regret pointless in itself, and nothing to lose sleep over, because things happen and they would not have happened any other way, simply because they didn't. He has learned from everything that has happened to him, and some of them make for great novels.

As things stand, he could probably feel nothing but relief if Orochimaru was killed, because his village would be safe; all bonds they once shared have been broken.

The one thing that makes him sad, however--the one instance that he believes firmly his presence may have changed--has nothing to do with Orochimaru at all. He won't name it a regret, even if it is, because he doesn't believe in regret. But this affects him now, and he wishes he had tried harder to make Tsunade love him, even just a little; that he'd stayed around, instead of leaving her when she needed someone most. Instead of leaving her to fall in love with corpses twice over, and see a corpse when she looks at him now.

But he doesn't lose sleep over it. He wants to, of course--but she never takes him up on his half-hearted propositions.

Orochimaru has never had a single regret in his entire life, because he has only ever lived for himself.


	16. sixteen

For a year afterward, she dreamed up all the different scenarios, all the what-ifs and maybes and might-have-beens. It took Sakura that long to realize that Sasuke would never have come back with her.

And now Naruto won't, either.


	17. seventeen

"When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance."(12)

Sai had a brother once, and all the while Naruto holds it against him that he has come to replace Sasuke--holds it against him that he has the same voice, and face, and dark hair and eyes, but smiles in a fake way Sasuke never would; speaks words Sasuke would never speak because Sasuke wore his anger, and never commented heartlessly with smiles that meant nothing and, because of that, everything--all the while, Sai holds it right back against Naruto.

They are alike in this way, but Sai is sharper and sees it first. They could have been friends to start out with, of course, but Sai sees the initial similarities, the sincerity of the laughter and the kindness that Naruto exudes, and he thought without thinking,_ They are just the same_, and so he picked on Naruto because if even Naruto-_kun_ hated him, it would be that much easier to feel nothing.

Above all, he did not want to be reminded of his brother.

But in the end, he is--in the end, it is Naruto that reminds him anyway, and Sai is suddenly brokenhearted and the smile he gives is real and Naruto is smiling at him, too, and it fills him with the almost-remembered sensations of affection, of bonds, and he wants to help Naruto with everything in his being so he can better understand his own heart.

Even though he knows with an absolute certainty that Sasuke is going to break Naruto's.


	18. eighteen

There will come a point in time where Sai will die for Naruto. He realizes this the minute he is flush against the blonde's back, holding the wickedly gleaming sword at bay. He also realizes that Naruto would not have moved. As he is not in the habit of lying to himself, he does not make the attempt; feelings are facts, too, he believes, and there are not choices when it comes to the truth. Something is or it isn't, and Sai doesn't really have too many reservations when it comes to Naruto, at this point.

He would prefer that his death accomplish something, though, at the least.


	19. references

1 Lao Tzu's _Tao Te Ching_, verse 2

2 Lao Tzu's _Tao Te Ching_, verse 33

3 Lao Tzu's _Tao Te Ching_, verse 23

4 Lao Tzu's _Tao Te Ching_, verse 11

5 Paulo Coelho's _The Alchemist_, page 115

6 Greek myth about two devoted half brothers.

7 Paulo Coelho's _The Alchemist_, page 151

8 Paulo Coelho's _The Alchemist_, page 40

9 Lau Tzu's _Tao Te Ching_, verse 67

10 Peter S. Beagle's _The Last Unicorn_, page 39

11 Oscar Wilde's _A Picture of Dorian Gray_, page 62

12 Oscar Wilde's _A Picture of Dorian Gray_, page 56


End file.
